By Adam Baskin: Trainer Andre Rozier says that David Benavidez will need to “respect” the speed & power of his fighter Demetrius ‘Boo Boo’ Andrade for their still-to-be-announced fight in December.
Andrade can’t stand in front of the boiled-down cruiserweight-sized Benavidez in this fight because he’s likely going to be in the 190s tonight after he rehydrates.
Benavidez is one of those fighters that competes out of his normal weight class and looks like death warmed over at the weigh-ins for his fights. When Benavidez rehydrates, he resembles a monster competing against his smaller opponents.
WBC interim super middleweight champion Benavidez had massive problems with the technical skills of Caleb Plant in his last fight in March, and there’s a clear blueprint created by ‘Sweethands’ for Team Andrade to follow to defeat him.
Rozier denies that he’s taking anything from the Benavidez-Plant fight to use to Andrade’s benefit, but with the look on his face when asked about that, it seems obvious that ‘Boo Boo’ is going to look to duplicate what ‘Sweet Hands’ did in the early going of that bout.
Most boxing fans would agree that if Plant didn’t gas out, he would have beaten ‘The Mexican’ Monster Benevaidez because was making it look easy in the first six rounds. The difference in technical skills between Plant & Benavidez was wide enough to drive a truck through them.
Jose Benavidez Sr., the father of Benavidez (26-0, 23 KOs), has been talking a lot about the fight with Andrade (32-0, 19 KOs), sounding nervous as if he’s having second thoughts about it.
Benavidez was looking shifty-eyed, talking about the Andrade fight in the same way he did when talking about the David Morrell Jr. match, which never happened.
Benavidez’s aggressiveness must be neutralized
“I’m a big fan of David [Benavidez]. He’s a fantastic fighter and athlete. We have to be able to sidetrack his tenacity and his overall aggressiveness,” said Andre Rozier to Fighthype about his plans for Demetrius Andrade to neutralize David Benavidez’s offense.
“Once we do that and control the atmosphere and not be there for him to inflict punches and combinations, I think you’re going to see a different situation,” said Rozier.
The way to beat Benavidez is to deal with his pressure & aggresivnessby by boxing him and staying on the outside to avoid his combination punching.
Benavidez’s huge cruiserweight size is too huge for Andrade or any super middleweight to stand in front of him. That’s why Plant lost. He got tired and could no longer move around the ring to avoid the hulking Benavidez.
“You have to respect what is,” said Rozier when asked if Benavidez will respect Andrade’s power, as he hasn’t knocked anyone out in a while. “You’re going to have to respect the speed.”
If the southpaw Andrade can put hands on Benavidez, he can definitely hurt him, but he’s not going to be able to stand and fight him in a war like he did in his contest against Maciek Sulecki.
Demetrius has the power to win
Andrade will need to pick his spots and focus on landing single punches because he’ll get chewed up if he stands and brawls with the much heavier Benavidez.
“You’re going to have to respect his punching capability and not discuss or give any ideas on the direction,” said Rozier. “We don’t do that but fine-tune the things that are complete when he does put somebody on the canvas.
“Nah, not really,” said Rozier on whether they’ll be watching Benavidez’s recent fight against Caleb Plant to take note of the problems he had in the first six rounds of that bout.
“Boo Boo is Boo Boo, and we’re going to work on things that Boo Boo does well and make them better,” said Rozier about Andrade.
